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Now Available! The Stragglyrs' "Country Project" strips country back to its roots and
fertilizes it with just the right touch of folk, rockabilly and Americana.
The sparse, live-in-the-studio sound is as honest as the 14 original songs
about old trains, doomed coal miners, life's elusive struggle for meaning,
the West, changing times and true love. You will hear story songs delivered
in three- and four-part harmony; the kinds of tunes that used to be played
on small, rural country-and-western stations in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York
and Michigan. Nowadays, the label "country rock" is all too often casually
slapped onto commercial music that really is nothing more than a din of
over-produced, sloppy rock 'n' roll. "Country Project" aspires to deliver a
pristine, genuine sound -- tastefully spiced with steel guitar, banjo, mandolin and
harmonica -- that recognizes that country rock is not just a classification
of music but a quality of music -- the kind of sound that Gram Parsons
called "Cosmic American Music."
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Sample Tracks
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National Insecurity rips our government's bankrupt, unconstitutional policies and
the endless Iraq war. "Waitin' for the Sun to Go Down," "How Long?" and "The
Decider" are cautionary tales that are tempered by musical exhortations to
do something to bring us to a brighter day: "At the Zoo," "If You Don't Step
Up," "Feed Everyone," "If the World Won't Rock" and "Take It Back."
"National Insecurity" is a folk-rock album that is current and timeless. The
middle stretch of the CD is just plain fun: beachy, folkie, country numbers
to help you temporarily escape the oceans of red ink, blood and greed that
are enveloping our once-great nation.
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Sample Tracks
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The confused state of a nation mired in a divisive war stalemate in Iraq takes center stage in an album dominated by
protest folk-rock with "Lost for a While," "W. Drilled Us" and
"War President." Western- and country-flavored folk-rock
are evident in "She's Gone," "Old Neil" (Young) and
"Lonesome Mystery." Pure rock euphoria is delivered by
"Tonight" and "Just Play."
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Sample Tracks
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The Stragglyrs escape the present and head back to the early 1880s for a psychedelic country-rock musical horse opera about a mail-order bride from Charleston, S.C., who rides a train to join her farmer husband-to-be in New Mexico. Along the way, she meets a dark gambler who threatens to be the seemingly happy couple's undoing.
See the lyrics
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Sample Tracks
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This progressive folk-rock album captures the dot-com era and the dot-bomb collapse with "Red Arrows Down," "Not the Real World," "RIF'ed Again," and "Out of the Loop." Reservations about the invasion of Iraq are voiced in "Bit of a Chill," and the haunting instrumental title cut, "Valley of the Shadows," is worth the price of admission alone.
See the lyrics
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Sample Tracks
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This folk-rock musical history of America kicks off with "Glade Runner," which tells the story of a day in the life of an Ohlone Indian in 1691. "Trip" continues into the 1960s with "Mango Surf Jam," "Camelot Lost," "Moon Landing" and the Grateful Dead-ish "Hippie Chick." The album laments violence with "Land of the .45," corruption, with the Woodie Guthrie-inspired "California Schemin' " and "One Nation" (under globalization). The tragedy of Sept. 11 is told in "Impossibly Blue" and "99 Names for God."
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Sample Tracks
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on CD Baby